Exit Strategy Read Online Free

Sabrina was guilty—­and she probably was—­he’d have to carry out his duty just as if she were any other mark.
    He didn’t understand what it was about her that tugged at his sympathies. But if he didn’t get a handle on it now, he was going to make mistakes. And in his line of work, mistakes could be deadly. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to look up from the confusing woman in his arms.
    “What the hell did you do to her?” Devlin Buchanan demanded from the open driver’s window. “She’s bleeding all over the place.”
    The censure in his voice had Mason bristling with anger, mostly because Buchanan was right. He should have taken better care of her, should have bandaged her arm as soon as he’d seen the cut. But to Buchanan, he said, “She’s alive. Which is more than any of my other marks can say.”
    Buchanan’s eyes narrowed.
    His wife, Emily, a brown-­eyed brunette several inches taller than Sabrina, waved toward the open door behind her husband. “We don’t have time to argue. Put her in the car. Please. ”
    Mason hesitated. Things might be going according to the hastily constructed plan they’d made at the cabin before he’d gone after Sabrina. But still, he barely knew these ­people and he wasn’t entirely sure where their loyalties lay.
    “Where’s Ramsey?”
    He jerked at the feel of Emily’s hand on his arm.
    She snatched her hand back and clasped her fingers together. “EXIT’s firewalls and compression algorithms are more intricate than we expected. Ramsey’s working with our computer expert to try to cover up the attempts we made to break into the mainframe.”
    “Then you weren’t able to get the information?”
    “No, I mean, yes, we did. Just not everything we were hoping for. We wanted to retrieve all of the EXIT orders from the past—­”
    “But you got the intel on Sabrina Hightower?” he interrupted.
    “Yes. Ramsey dropped it off at the cabin. It’s the only useful info we got before a security program closed the firewall again. Or something like that. I’m not the computer whiz. We probably won’t be able to get back in again, and will have to physically break into an EXIT facility and go for the backups, maybe even paper files. Those won’t be as protected because—­”
    “Enough.” He tightened his arms around Sabrina. “What did you find out about Sabrina?”
    She smiled, not at all put off by his rude interruptions. “You did the right thing, Mason. She’s innocent.”
    Innocent. One little word with so much power—­the power to save Sabrina, the power to destroy Mason. His entire world was tilting on its axis. Everything was about to change—­if the information was legit, something he had to confirm for himself. He’d been loyal to EXIT for six years. Turning traitor didn’t sit well with him, not unless there was a solid reason to do so.
    “Where is it? This so-­called proof?”
    “Still at the cabin. We stopped—­”
    “Headlights,” Buchanan announced. “On the hill a quarter mile back. Let’s go.”
    Mason glanced down the road. Whoever was behind them was coming up fast, far above the speed limit. Not a good sign. He hopped into the Hummer and settled Sabrina onto the seat beside him before slamming his door shut.
    As soon as Emily’s door was closed, her husband floored the gas and the Hummer barreled down the two-­lane highway.
    “Would you fasten Sabrina’s seat belt please? And yours?” Emily asked.
    He vaguely wondered if she was always this polite as he secured Sabrina. Emily glanced pointedly at his unbuckled seat belt. He had no intention of putting it on. Let her think he was being stubborn. Better that than to admit the real reason: that being restrained in any way would make him bat-­shit crazy. Just the thought of being strapped down had phantom pain shooting through the ridged scars on his back and shadows of memories threatening to overcome him.
    Wires crisscrossing over his back held him to the